Team R’s final advanced research and development topic revolved around the idea of motor power efficiency. The goal of this R&D was to determine how motor speed affected the time and energy of the AEV. To do this the AEV ran three trials at the speeds 25%, 30%, 35%, 40%, and 45%. The data was extracted and the time, in seconds, and the total energy, in joules, was recorded when the AEV reached 8 meters. The time and energy was then used to determine the cost of each run. This data is shown in the table below. The time decreased as the motor power increased but the total joules stayed about the same at each speed. Because of this, the cost decreased as the power increased. Due to these findings, higher motor powers were used during the final performance test.
